Redwire Wins $12.9 Million NASA Award to Develop Systems for Building Lunar Infrastructure

By Sophia Francise

July 27, 2023

Redwire Corporation receives a $12.9 million NASA Tipping Point award to develop a unique manufacturing technology for building lunar infrastructure, including landing pads, roads, and habitat foundations.

The technology enables lunar construction, advancing human and robotic operations, promoting a sustainable human presence and dynamic lunar economy.

The company, which is a leader in space infrastructure for the next generation space economy, will use local materials (lunar regolith) to build infrastructure..

The use of this new technology, which is among the 11 projects funded by NASA, will benefit lunar exploration by reducing the cost of sending construction materials to the Moon. 

“Lunar sustainability is at the very heart of the Artemis program.  Developing the technology to create infrastructure on the Moon to support landing, habitation, and commercial operations will enable the robust future that America and its international partners are creating,” said John Vellinger, the Executive Vice President of Redwire. 

Redwire’s manufacturing technology will use a microwave emitter that heats and solidifies regolith to construct landing pads, roads, foundations, and dust mitigation surfaces

The technology will be scalable to lunar rovers, vehicles, and robotic arms.[1]

Redwire will make use of its significant in-space service, assembly, and manufacturing expertise, which is being leveraged to build in-situ resource utilization technologies and space infrastructure systems for use on the surface of the Moon, Mars, and beyond. 

“We are very excited to leverage Redwire’s decades of flight heritage and experience on the International Space Station, providing the vision technology for Orion and numerous other systems, to literally build the foundation of a new era in lunar space exploration and utilization,” added Vellinger.

In an earlier release this year, Redwire stated that they would be supplying its Roll-Out Solar Array technology for Astrobotic’s Lunar Vertical Solar Array Technology initiative to supply power on the lunar surface.

References

  1. Redwire Space, ‘Redwire Selected for $12.9 Million NASA Award to Develop Trailblazing Systems to Build Landing Pads, Roads, and other Forms of Infrastructure on the Moon’, 25 July 2023, https://redwirespace.com/newsroom/pads-roads-and-other-forms-of-infrastructure-on-the-moon/[]
Share: